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Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Gas Drilling & Hunting: How Is It Going?

The Pittsburgh Steelers and the Phillies in a championship season create about the same excitement as the start of deer season does across Pennsylvania. Deer season and hunting is also big business with hundreds of thousand of people traveling within and to Pennsylvania's great hunting lands.

Like hunting in our woods, drilling is a very old activity in Pennsylvania, where 57,000 gas wells operate, the second highest number in the nation. Yet, the advent of the Marcellus shale boom has focused attention on the impact of drilling on hunting once more.

At this point, Pennsylvania is home to about 4,000 drilled Marcellus wells, with about half that number actually producing gas. So what has been the impact of gas drilling on hunting this season?

The article is largely anecdotal, though it reports the bear harvest is the second highest on record. It mentions some complaints about truck traffic and touches on fears about wildlife drinking drilling wastewater at impoundments.

But it seems that 2011 is another year when hunting and gas drilling have co-existed like many years in Pennsylvania's long, proud history.

About Me

I am an expert on energy, environment, green economy, competitive electric markets, and utility regulation with unique experience in and out of government. I am a Democratic candidate for Governor of PA. See www.hangerforgovernor.com. You can email me at john@hangerforgovernor.com. I have been both the Secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection and Commissioner of the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission. I have made leading regulatory decisions, testified to Congress and state legislatures, and been interviewed countless times, appearing on CBS evening News, NBC Evening New, CNN, BBC, CBC, and many more outlets. I am a 1984 graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and 1979 graduate of Duke University.